By Carys Mills, Ottawa Citizen, April 1, 2014
OTTAWA — Two weeks before Capital Bixi bikes are due on Ottawa streets, the National Capital Commission is releasing little information on the bike-sharing program’s status.
The NCC owns Bixi bikes and stations in Ottawa. Montreal company Public Bike System Co., widely known as Bixi, has a contract to run Capital Bixi until 2015.
By Carys Mills, Ottawa Citizen, April 1, 2014
OTTAWA — Construction will start again Wednesday on the botched Airport Parkway footbridge project, which is already years late and millions of dollars over budget.
Before contractor Louis W. Bray starts cleaning up and preparing the site, construction signs will go back up, and the speed limit in the construction zone will fall to 60 kilometres and hour from 80km/h, said River Coun. Maria McRae.
By Matthew Pearson, Ottawa Citizen, April 1, 2014
OTTAWA — Waste Management Inc. has filed a rezoning application to expand its Carp Road commercial landfill.
The company’s environmental assessment was approved by the Ministry of the Environment in September but now it needs the city to sign off on a technical zoning change to allow it actually open a landfill.
By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, March 31, 2014
OTTAWA — The giant swallowtail is a gorgeous butterfly from Canada’s extreme south, only seen near Ottawa in the past year or two.
Milder winters probably brought it north. Then this winter arrived.
Biologists won’t know for certain until warm weather begins, but they’re watching to see whether the giant swallowtail and other warm-weather insects will survive the coldest winter in 20 years.
By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, March 31, 2014
OTTAWA — Even if you never go near a farm, you benefit from pencil-and-paper math done by a young Ontario crop scientist exactly 50 years ago.
Murray Brown produced the first detailed map of exactly how much heat the sun delivers to each farming area in Ontario.
By Shannon Moneo, Ottawa Citizen, March 30, 2014
What does $40 get you nowadays? A lunch for two? A manicure? Half a tank of gas? Nails be damned; it got me a community garden plot for one year where I grew 10 times worth that amount of organic vegetables.
Once upon a time, community gardens were the domain of the elderly or immigrants, people who grew up growing their own produce and later happy for the chance to be able to do it in an urban setting. Today, community gardeners are as varied as the plants seeded in the gardens. No longer just onions, cabbage and peas, welcome to the world of mesclun, heirloom tomatoes and eggplants being tended by young families with babes in strollers, joining generation X foodies, keen to grow tasty cooking ingredients. And I still remember the day when a middle-aged man pulled up in his small British convertible, got out, proceeded to water his salad greens and sweet peas — decked out in kilt and sporran.
By CFRA News, March 29, 2014
The Canadian Automobile Association hs launched its annual Top 10 Worst Roads in Ontario campaign and according to CTV News Ottawa, a number of streets in the capital are already getting considerable numbers of votes.
CTV reports that votes are fairly substantial for St. Patrick Street, Carling Avenue and Baseline Road.
By Ottawa Citizen, March 30, 2014
OTTAWA — The “continued slap-in-the-face“ winter weather struck again Sunday, when 10 to 15 cm of snow fell in the national capital.
But Environment Canada meteorologist Arnold Ashton said he would “almost bet on“ the capital being storm-free this week, when the weather is supposed to be seasonal.
By Vito Pilieci, Ottawa Citizen, March 30, 2014
OTTAWA — Consumers reeling from a freshly approved 40-per-cent increase to natural gas rates could soon be facing even larger hikes to their monthly gas bills, thanks to a request now before the National Energy Board to increase gas transportation fees by as much as 52.3 per cent in Eastern Ontario.
The National Energy Board is reviewing a submission from some of the largest natural gas companies in Canada that looks to increase the rates charged to companies that are moving gas across the Canadian Mainline — the line that moves natural gas across the country and is the primary source of fuel for homes in Eastern Ontario.